Performance Analysis of an Indoor UWB System Based on Energy Detection

In this paper, we present a ranging experiment performed in a typical indoor environment with a digital ultra wideband (UWB) system. At first, the structures of UWB transceivers are introduced, based on which the time of arrival (TOA) estimation algorithm based on energy detection is proposed consequently. Then the experiment background including the environment and measure method is illustrated. In order to mitigate the ranging error caused by theoretical algorithm and practical circuits, One way - time difference of arrival (OW-TDOA) ranging method and corresponding approaches are proposed and carried out. The obtained results show that this UWB ranging system can achieve a relative high ranging accuracy in a multipath environment (e.g. about 5 cm at ranges up to 10 m), which is practical and meaningful for many sensor applications.